…a single-movement canvas of uncommon skill and purposefulness and fluency for one so tender in years

Andrew Achenbach, Gramophone, May 2007

Symphonic writing has been a mainstay of Taylor’s output and his First Symphony (1985) displays a telling symphonic logic within its single-movement dimensions…

Sinfonia Brevis successfully integrates its relative extremes of motion into an organic and inevitable whole: something not necessarily to be expected from a composer just into his twenties and which this performance captures in full measure.

For proof that the Symphony is alive and well look no further than the Second Symphony of Matthew Taylor, a magnificently integrated utterance firmly in the lineage of Simpson, Nielsen and Tippett. Believe me the music is that good...

Gramophone, October 2014

If the enthusiastic response by audience and orchestra of the premiere of Matthew Taylor's Second Symphony is anything to go by then there is a future for contemporary music in this country...

Dedicated to Monica McCabe of her late husband, great friend and fellow symphonist John this symphony is a large one movement work which falls into three parts . The first starts with a vigorous sweep of energy which gradually broadens and intensifies before easing into an expansive often inwardly expressive slow movement. The final part acknowledges the influence of Haydn and Prokofiev and culminates in a return of the opening music, this time enforced with two pairs of timpani, part of an inextinguishable tradition when composing fourth symphonies. But despite the upheavals and tensions in the work , it is a predominantly amiable work I think it is my friendliest symphony yet.